Knowing that there was everything in my appearance to command respect,
I went into the manager's room with confidence. Lean and brown and
middle-aged, in a tweed coat and grey flannel trousers, which, though
not new, were well cut, I felt that I looked like one accustomed to
put in and take out sums from banks. There was no trying for effect,
no effort, no tie-pin. The stick I carried was a plain ash. The pipe,
which I removed from my mouth, had no silver mounting. Ah, but it
showed the tiny mother-of-pearl star which stamped it as a Bungknoll.
There was going to be no difficulty here.
"Good morning," I said. "I regret to trouble a busy man over a small
matter, but I wish to cash a cheque for ten pounds."
He was a quiet, capable-looking man with a rather tired expression.
"The cashing of cheques," he said, laying down his pipe, "is one item
of our duties."
"Unfortunately," I continued, "I have run short of money. I bought a
rather good print in a shop down the road and it has left me without
any. I can give a cheque on Bilson's, but the banks in town close
to-morrow and it would mean waiting three days, so I hope that you
will be able to--"
"You can bring someone to identify you, of course?" he said, reaching
for a bell.
"I am sorry to say that I am unknown here. I am all right at the
hotel, but I don't like to ask the people for money. I have brought
only a small bag, and what with the races and so forth I might expose
myself to a disagreeable refusal."
"Yes," he said, "you might. But I'm afraid I can't cash a cheque for
you without an identification. I'll send it for collection if you
like."
"But that means waiting for days, and I haven't a shilling left.
I came here for a week to look at the country about your town--a
beautiful little town." I added this diplomatically.
"Do you think so? I consider it a hole. But I don't know much about
it as I'm only here for a week. However, I'm sorry I can't help you
except in the way I mentioned."
"But look here--do I look like the kind of man who plays tricks? Here
is my card and my club address. And letters"--I tore one out of an
envelope, but it was the one from Mosbyson's reminding me that they
had already applied twice for payment--"but letters are of little use
to identify one."
"They are," he agreed.
"The fact is, among other things, I want to buy another print which I
have just caught sight of. It may be snapped up at any moment, like
the one I snapped up yesterday."
"Let it go. It's probably a fake."
"Which one?" I said hotly. "The one I bought yesterday or the one I'm
going to buy?"
"Both. But I can't cash your cheque."
"But look at the mess I'll be in. Would you have me pawn my watch?"
"I would not; neither would I have you not do so, if you take my
meaning."
"I see," I said bitterly. "In plain words you are indifferent to my
fate."
He smiled slightly and reached for a match to re-light his pipe.
My blood was up. I would not be defied by this man; at least, not
completely. "Very well," I said coldly, "I will leave my cheque for
ten pounds with you and take only a couple on account."
"I couldn't do that either."
"Well, a pound will have to do then."
"No."
"Then," I said in despair, "we come to the ridiculously small amount
of eighteenpence. Ha, ha!"
"And that," he answered, "would be equally objectionable."
I started. "Come," I said, "you are human after all. You can quote at
random from DICKENS. You read him?"
"I do. When not engaged in business pursuits." He looked anxiously at
the clock.
"Who was _Mrs. Chickenstalker_?" I asked sternly.
"She kept a shop. In _The Haunted Man_."
"Whom did _Mr. Wopsle_ marry?"
"Nobody. But hadn't you better see about your watch?"
"Not yet. How many glasses of punch did _Mr. Pickwick_ drink on One
Tree Hill?"
"Depends on how you count them. I make it eight."
"Correct. Look here--have you thought about the bagman's story--the
first one? He says it is eighty years since the events he relates took
place, and that would carry it back to 1747. And yet the traveller
damns his straps and whiskers. Why, if he'd worn strapped trousers and
whiskers in those days he'd have had a mob after him."
"Yes, and he wouldn't have been driving a gig on Marlborough downs.
He'd have been riding with pistols in his holsters, wrapped in a
horseman's cloak and wearing a plain bobwig. I've thought of that
too."
"I see you have. But there's another--"
"Let me. Can you account for this? _Martin Chuzzlewit_ left _Mr.
Pecksniff's_ house in the late autumn--say the last of November to
be on the safe side. He stays five weeks in London and then goes
to America--say another five weeks. Then, after a week in _Major
Pawkins_' boarding-house, he goes to a place which is identified as
the original site of Cairo, Illinois--say another week. This would
land him there at the end of February, when everything is frozen
stiff. But they travelled down the river in a heat that blistered
everything it touched."
"No," I said jealously, "I have not thought of that. Wonderful, isn't
it, how one likes to catch DICKENS in a mistake? Like having a joke on
a good old friend."
"Exactly," he said ardently, "I wish I had more time--"
"If you're free this evening come and dine with me at the 'Bull.' At
about eight, if you can."
"I'd like to very much. Thanks. I'll come."
"I've thought of two more," I said; "but I'll go now, as you must be
busy, so good-bye for the present. A bit before eight."
"I'll be there. I am rather busy just now. Good morning." He rang the
bell. "Oh, Mr. Jounce," he said to the underling who appeared, "will
you please cash this gentleman's cheque?"
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Lady (to applicant for situation as cook)._ "HAVE YOU
BEEN ACCUSTOMED TO HAVE A KITCHEN-MAID UNDER YOU?"
_Cook._ "IN THESE DAYS WE NEVER SPEAK OF HAVING PEOPLE 'UNDER US.' BUT
I HAVE HAD COLLEAGUES."]
* * * * *
=AN UNLIKELY STORY.=
I am hoping very much that this story will, as Agony Column
advertisements put it, meet the eye of a certain Professor at a
certain Academy of Music. Of course I might tell it to him myself,
as he happens to be my Professor, at least from 7 to 7.45 on Friday
evenings; but it is a story which involves a great deal of explanation
and, well--things on the whole get believed better in print.
To be quite frank I did begin telling him at the time, but I saw that
the first two words had destroyed his faith in the rest of it. I don't
really blame him, for it began with "my cleaner," and I don't suppose
that he has the ghost of an idea that, if you teach cooking, as I do,
under the London County Council, they kindly keep a charlady to wash
up for you and so on, and they call her a "cleaner."
The Professor is a very bad listener. I might have managed to explain
to him what a cleaner is, but I never could have made him see why she
was having tea with me, so I gave it up.
Really it is so simple. She lives at Cambridge Heath; I live at
Croydon, which doesn't sound as countrified but is really so much
nicer that no Croydon people who knew Cambridge Heathers could help
asking them to tea at least once a year, when the garden was at its
best. My cleaner's visit is always very delightful, because she
makes the garden seem at least four times its usual size by sheer
admiration; but this year, just as she was getting into her stride, it
began to rain, and we had to seek refuge by the piano.
We sang "Where the Bee Sucks" and "Annie Laurie" very successfully,
and she at last unthawed to the extent of remarking that she would
give us a "chune," though she "hadn't stood up" to sing by herself
"for donkey's ears." Stipulating that someone should help her out if
the need arose, she investigated the inside of the piano-stool where
the music lives, looking for a suitable song, and made, to her horror,
the discovery that among all the odd pages it contained there was not
one that had ever adhered to a piece called "The Maxeema," nor yet to
a song which asks how someone is "Goin' to keep 'em down on the farm
now they've seen gay Paree?"
The painful incident was passed over at the time, "The Long Trail"
being discovered at the bottom of the pile and satisfactorily
negotiated, and I forgot all about it until the next Friday evening,
when, just as I was about to shake the dust of Cambridge Heath off my
shoes, my cleaner, rising from her scrubbing, wiped her hands on her
apron, produced two large limp sheets of white paper which resolved
themselves into the music I ought to have had and hadn't, and pressed
them upon me with all the eagerness of a more than cheerful giver.
A kind of panic seized me, for on Friday evenings I make the Academy
of Music as it were a half-way house on my way home. Under the
cleaner's kind and beaming glance there was nothing to do but put them
into the attaché case in which I carry my music and try to believe
that, wonderful man as he is, even my Professor wouldn't be able to
see inside it when it was shut, in fact that it only rested with me to
be quite sure that in his presence I only took out Chopin and not the
gentleman who was interested in farming.
And I managed nicely. I took out the "Nocturnes" and shut the case
up again before the cleverest (and nicest) of Professors could have
guessed the company they were keeping, and he was graciously pleased
to nod, instead of shaking his head, for most of the three-quarters of
an hour. He really must have been pleased with me, for at 7.45 he told
me that I showed marked improvement, and then kept me till 7.49 while
he explained that a _flair_ for the best of music such as I exhibited
was both uncommon and, from a Professor's point of view, exceeding
enjoyable. At 7.50--he, benign, I blushful--we approached the
attaché-case.
"Allow me," said my Professor, reaching for it to replace Chopin; but
I snatched it up before he could get it. Like most truly great men he
is a little absent-minded, and he didn't seem to notice anything, but
just held out his hand in farewell. But when my Professor shakes
hands it means more than that; it means benediction, recognition,
salutation--lots of things; for it is rumoured at the Academy that he
never bestows that honour on any save those whom he regards as kindred
spirits, acolytes at the altar of Music, personalities, not pupils.
And then my attaché-case opened itself quietly, after the manner of
attaché-cases, and laid "'Ow're you goin' to keep 'em?" and "The
Maxeema" right side up, and their names in such large print too, like
an offering at his wonderful feet. Trembling at the knees I said:--
"My cleaner gave them to me."
But he looked at me and went on looking, and that is why I hope so
very much that he will read this very unlikely story.
* * * * *